Reviews

My wife loves watching telenovelas, I usually don't care for them. But this one is different to any other telenovela I have ever seen. So very different that I couldn't resist watching almost every episode.

Instead of finding capable actors, the producers of this show have concentrated entirely on finding incredibly good looking photo models. Acting abilities were apparently not required, good measurements were. At least 5 or 6 of the main female characters are so stunningly beautiful that you cannot take your eyes off the screen. And the lead character Rosaura, oh my god what a babe.

To top things off, most of these girls run around in either bikinis or otherwise very revealing clothing. I swear you will never forget the sight of Camelia in her tight jeans or her long black leather pants...

I cannot comment about the male characters, but my wife was apparently pleased by the looks of some of the leads. Good for her.

The acting is indeed among the worst I have ever seen, the story is dragged out artificially more than one can bear, the plot is in many places completely unrealistic and even illogical, the sets are ridiculously overused, but who cares with so much to see and enjoy...

Many here have commented on the cringe-worthy Panchita. While her scenes are indeed totally obnoxious, they are not the worst yet. A severe word of warning is required here: Easily 10 times more unbearable than the Panchita-scenes are the ridiculous talking-parrot scenes. Well, you can always go grab a new beer...

If it weren't for the up-to-date special effects, this movie feels like it was made completely in the 1970s.

By todays standards, it seems to contain too many slow moments, simplistic and cliched dialogue, and poorly thought-out scientific concepts. Reading all of the user comments here, these criticisms come up again and again. Very well, but re-watching most memorable Sci-Fi movies from the 1970s reveals very similar flaws when judged by today's standards.

So, if you can think of this movie as a journey back in time to the Sci-Fi haydays of 2001, Close Encounters etc, but with state-of-the art effects, you will enjoy the movie. Yes, there will be times when you shake your head at the dialogue, but if you manage to look past the small problems of the movie and overlook some of the technical flaws, you will be treated with a classic, old-fashioned, slow-moving Sci-Fi flick that will give you suspense and wonder.

To put it in other words: If you still love old Star Trek and Doctor Who episodes and are not distracted by the simple special effects and silly dialogue of those old shows, but just let yourself be entertained by the concepts and ideas contained therein, you will also enjoy this movie.

7 out of 10

This movie starts out with an intriguing storyline of a person who gets poisoned and knows for sure that he will not survive the next 24 hours. All that is left for him is to find out who did it and why.

That 24 hours are effectively very little time is felt in every second of this extremely fast paced movie. There is no time to stop and think as the story unfolds, instead we see Quaid on constant overdrive using every second of his precious time to follow any lead he might get on his killer. There is in fact a romantic involvement, but even this happens on fast-forward speed.

So far so good, but the movie actually disappoints in two areas: Firstly, there are a lot (count them!) of violent deaths in this movie that don't really add to the main plot and distract from the interesting premise that was set in the beginning. Was it really necessary to kill off that many secondary characters? Was there no other way to keep the suspense up? At times it felt like the director thought: "Well, there have been at least 12 minutes without anybody being killed, it is high time we include another death in the script"

The even bigger disappointment for me was the conclusion. Without giving away any details here, I couldn't help but think "so THAT was what it was all about?". After all that suspense and in-your-face action, I thought the "solution" to be a bit lame and not very realistic.